Welcome

P 3471 God’s welcome sign is always OUT.

/ DVH

“You can pass through His open gates with the password of praise. Come right into His Presence with thanksgiving. Come bring your thank offering to Him and affectionately bless His beautiful Name! For YAHWEH is always good and ready to receive you. He’s so loving that it will amaze you— so kind that it will astound you! And He is famous for His faithfulness toward all. Everyone knows our God can be trusted, for He keeps His promises to every generation!” Psalm 100:4-5 TPT.

Version 2: “Shout with joy before the Lord, O earth! Obey Him gladly; come before Him, singing with joy. Try to realize what this means—the Lord is God! He made us—we are His people, the sheep of His pasture. Go through His open gates with great thanksgiving; enter His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and bless His Name. For the Lord is always good. He is always loving and kind, and His faithfulness goes on and on to each succeeding generation.” Psalm 100: 4-5 TLB.

I’ve put two versions of this Psalm up today because it is  helpful to read verses in different versions. It helps clarify the Lord’s meaning. Meanwhile, I think the language in the Passion Translation is so welcoming and positive, who wouldn’t want to be that person? Our biggest mistake when we read the bible is to be swamped by the words the writer used. That can lead to skimming over any old-fashioned terminology that we don’t quite understand. In both versions of this Psalm, the theme is the same – as we praise and give thanks, the Lord’s gates open wide!

However, let’s not also deify the words, I think that would be a mistake. The point of the words is the Subject — Almighty God Himself! Words are simply the vehicles that open our eyes to Who He is and how much He loves us. The Holy Spirit is the One Who takes those words and makes them pertinent to each one of us, day by day. He gives us the Lord’s Grace to act on them, and uses them to challenge, and encourage us. We have access to the glory of God Himself as we meditate on and chew over what He says to us from day by day.

The encouragement and confidence we get in return for our spontaneously joyful attitudes, can become the very thing that sustains us during our mostly ordinary days. Especially as we pause in His Presence, and allow His words to sink in. This is what is meant to happen every single time we pick up the bible. Reading His Word is like going to our Father’s house to thank, praise and worship Him for all He has done for us. Studying the bible is not a chore when you see it from the point of view of messages from the Lord’s heart to ours. “God wants to see ME, His doors fly open when He hears MY praise.” Forget the worship leader with the great voice and skills – He loves your singing, gratitude and love toward Him. He is, when all is said and done — a loving FATHER, proud of His kids.

As I read this Psalm today, the thing that blessed my heart was the realisation that when I spend time with Him, I am never an interruption, or an afterthought or even unknown. He won’t ever say to the Holy Spirit … what’s-her-name again? 😊 The thing about any kind of praise and thanksgiving is that it aligns my heart with what is already going on in heaven. I am joining in with something far bigger than myself! These words may have been written by a man, but it is the Holy Spirit speaking, that’s why this person chose to remain anonymous. The Speaker wants us to see Almighty God, not just their words. 

All of us can tune into our Father’s heartbeat immediately, especially when we make those two things – thanksgiving and praise – our starting place. No matter what else is going on in our lives or how affected by circumstances we may be, those gates and our own personal love and reverence for the Lord, opens our heart when we praise and thank Him for loving us. We know that we are always welcome at His house because the bible tells us so, over and over again. He loves to see us! It is easy to praise and thank the Lord as we discover how He feels about His children. Here’s a word of advice, don’t just read to find information or instruction, ask the Holy Spirit to help you find His heart!

Heaven is the most important place in this world or any other, and when you and I remember His goodness to us and enter His courts to enjoy His Grace, Mercy and love – we are transformed by what we receive there. Praise and thanksgiving are incredibly easy when you get rid of entitlement. Suddenly everything the Lord does for us, becomes an undeserved gift. A heart of gratitude can sustain us through so many difficult circumstances. Like the Psalmist says: “We need to be prepared to be amazed by His responses.” 

Our God is not removed from humanity, that’s why Jesus came here, to illustrate by His life and death the lengths our Heavenly Father went to, so He could have all of mankind for His own people. This is yet another place to pause and give praise and thanks. The good news today is:  “YOU ARE ALWAYS WELCOME AT MY HOUSE. You can give your praise and thanksgiving to Me, in person, in My Presence! You will find I am always so happy to see you.” Amen. Bye.👋.

P 3464 This is what restoration looks like.

/ DVH

“I appeal to you for my [own spiritual] child, Onesimus [meaning profitable], whom I have begotten [in the faith] while a captive in these chains. Once he was unprofitable to you, but now he is indeed profitable to you as well as to me. I am sending him back to you in his own person, [and it is like sending] my very heart. I would have chosen to keep him with me, in order that he might minister to my needs in your stead during my imprisonment for the Gospel’s sake.]. Perhaps it was for this reason that he was separated [from you] for a while, that you might have him back as yours forever, 

Not as a slave any longer but as [something] more than a slave, as a brother [Christian], especially dear to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh [as a servant] and in the Lord [as a fellow believer]. If then you consider me a partner and a comrade in fellowship, welcome and receive him as you would [welcome and receive] me. And if he has done you any wrong in any way or owes anything [to you], charge that to my account. I, Paul, write it with my own hand, I promise to repay it [in full]—and that is to say nothing [of the fact] that you owe me your very self!”

These verses come from Philemon V10-19. They make it clear that true reconciliation means real repentance and restoration. We don’t know exactly what happened here, but news of it must have reached Colossae because the people there knew what this young man had done. First of all — I just want to mention the bit kind of tacked on at the end: “if he has done you any wrong in any way or owes you anything, …charge that to my account…” here’s the punch line …’it’s me, Paul and I am writing this in person. I will repay you if it is necessary, …but you need to remember that you owe me everything!” Paul stood up for this young man and he put himself between Onesimus and judgment. 

It has been suggested that this young man sinned against Paul perhaps stealing from him, but Paul grabbed hold of God’s grace and went back into ‘love.’ His actions show us what God’s grace, looks like. Undeserved, and unreserved. Now he esteems the culprit highly. Paul knows Jesus and he is acquainted with His Ways so well, that this is his first and only response! In His mind forgiveness means forgotten, and he wants to get on about the business of today – leaving yesterday behind. He is still teaching the church, but now he is leading by example.

Repentance acknowledges a fault, without harping on the point, and it quickly heads toward reconciliation, restoration  and forgiveness. It seems to me that Paul may have wanted to go with Onesimus and act as a go between, to make sure this reconciliation was complete, hence the letter. But he was in jail so he could not do that. He is simply stating the truth, and giving the people at Colossae a chance to digest his words and enter into true reconciliation with this young man as well, and put aside their previous opinions of him.

Sometimes when someone deeply wounds us, we need to take a little while to digest what happened, and how we felt about it. It is interesting that Paul is not looking for a patch over this problem, he is far more interested in healing it. Paul wants this church to move on to a wider place. People are human, they make mistakes, and some terrible mistakes have extremely far reaching effects. It is wisdom to carefully take our time to clear up our own reactions, otherwise we can easily say yes … when our hearts are yelling NO-O-O! That can have terrible consequences.

But I have a word of caution, don’t let your feelings, or even mental or physical pain, keep you from forgiving others. Forgiveness is a spiritual transaction. It is a spiritual thing. I forgive that other person because God forgave me first. We don’t just do that in theory, we do it in practice. (Matthew 18:21) It’s not always easy — 70X7 is a whole lot of practice! When the Lord forgave us from the cross, He released His Grace into our lives in abundance. Now we have something tangible to give away to anybody who hurts us. We have His never-ending Grace constantly flowing toward us, and we can give it away freely, just by using our faith. We now have more than we will ever ever need … Grace is tangible, eternity is resting on it!

Whatever we concentrate on becomes bigger, and it can fill our vision the longer we think on it. So someone else’s sin can literally block out the SON in our own lives. What we need to do is to use the GRACE we’ve already been given, and remember we can’t afford to hide behind excuses. Revising someone’s sin and talking about it with others will just enlarge how we feel about it. We will get sucked deeper into a vortex of despair, anger, and the need for revenge. The reality is, outside of releasing His Grace into our situation, we can end up more stuck than we were before. And we will be ‘punished’ twice, once by the offence and the second time by our reaction to it.

I am not saying that other people’s sins can’t devastate our lives, prayer and support are often needed. But we must choose to change our focus, otherwise we will remain a prisoner of that other person/s sin. Here’s something that helps me – this person who deeply hurt us cannot go back and undo what they did. This is now your story. Like it or not. Now your story is affected by scars. Jesus has scars too. We need to focus on moving past the event — for the sake of our faith.

If that other person does not choose to change, then prayerfully continue to love and pray for them, from a distance — let your inner self be less available to them. However, at the same time, we need to remember that we can often distance people to make ourselves comfortable, without asking the Lord what His plan is! Forgiveness can be so difficult whether we have a real or perceived grievance. It tests our faith. But we have inherited, from Christ Himself, a ministry of reconciliation. True restoration shows our gratitude to God for what He gave us. Bye. 👋.

P 3400 You clean fish after you’ve caught them!

/ DVH

In the church today we seem to have forgotten that WE are now the Holy Spirit’s temple. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit Who is within you, whom you have [received as a gift] from God, and that you are not your own [property]?” 1 Corinthians 6:19. Just because we can’t always feel Him, see Him, or hear Him, that doesn’t mean He is not with us. But it can mean we are not making Him welcome or walking with Him! Like I said a few days ago, we can still choose to tune Jesus out when it suits us, and then we cannot hear Him properly to serve Him. Sound familiar?

The Lord promised us that He would send the Holy Spirit back to us, and He did. Now we are no longer our own “… for God bought you with a high price. So you must honour God with your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:20… Now our lives are to be spent serving the Lord… He gave His life for us, and now we give up our lives serving Him. At the office, on the train, in school, at our house, wherever we are … now we are servants of the Most High God and we don’t get Mondays and Fridays off! Death to self is not just a Sunday way to think, it’s an all day every day, every minute of the day lifestyle. Whatever we do now, we do it with all our hearts as though we were doing it for Jesus Himself – because we are!

The consequence of our lack of understanding of our new life in Christ means we can end up trying to fit Jesus in around the way we used to live. Except for one fact, our old man died when we said yes to Jesus. At the same time there are Christian people right now, sincere precious saints, who are trying hard to serve God in their own strength. Sometimes they have the appearance of good or they fail secretly. Then they feel bad … and eventually they fail again. Where we are failing the worst is that we don’t understand, when He died, WE DIED. When we asked Jesus to save us we left our old lifestyle, our way of thinking being and doing behind us. Now we need to become best friends with the Holy Spirit. If He likes it, we like it. If He doesn’t then we don’t either. 

The more we apply the Word of God to this world’s injuries, and sinful activities in our lives, the more power we will have to follow Him. We simply can’t do that in our own strength. Even if we succeed in producing the outward appearance, we can’t change our hearts. However, because of God’s great GRACE, we do not have to do this alone. The Holy Spirit has been given to us to help us – to remind us. To ‘buddy’ us through the process of putting down all our old ways and picking up God’s new ones. I want to warn you, in my experience, that is not an easy thing. Mainly because we’ve begun to think that we already know who we are, so change/transformation is like peeling off your skin inch by inch.

I said all that to say this:  on this last journey we met two very different people, but they both had one thing in common. They had been thoroughly rejected by the Body of Christ so much so they didn’t dare go to church, nor did they associate with Christians. So whatever transformation they are supposed to undergo, became null and void under the attacks of seemingly virtuous Christians. Gird up your loins you ain’t gunna like this one bit …

,,, One person was a homosexual trapped within a lifestyle that offered them a perverse form of love. For some desperate people the wrong kind of love is better than no love at all. This young man cried and sobbed when hubby was kind to him, because he was so used to being rejected by the church. We don’t have to approve of this person’s behaviour to love them. Often we reject people simply because we don’t know how to display the love of God with power, we are not displaying Who He is into the world around us! And yes, I’ve read the book, I know how the Lord feels about homosexual behaviour. “Some will be snatched from the fire.” Jude 1:23.

The second person is a divorced lady, whose father is a pastor.  She had been thrown out of her family, her church, her Christian friendships for getting a divorce.  Divorce is not contagious, people, its a choice, sometimes made under terrible pressure. Her entire family no longer speaks to her, or associates with her. The Holy Spirit loved both of these people. In order to set prisoners like these people free, the people who actually want to love Jesus but have no power to stop what they are doing …  the church must stop eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and stuff ourselves full, daily, with the fruit of the tree of LIFE!

We’ve become like the Pharisees etc. We keep rejecting the lepers and the so-called unclean ones, but our churches are the only place ANYONE can get clean. People come to church to get clean! We need the power of the Risen, Resurrected Christ to help them. We were all sinners, every single one of us. We must stop judging the people who seemingly have HUGE sins against our supposed little ones. And start having compassion on those people who are trapped by satan’s lies telling them: ‘that this is who they are, and they can’t be any other way.’ 

None of us know who we really are, or what we are capable of doing until we are tested. I found that out the hard way. Read the book and take particular note of the things you want to gloss over. Have you ever wished someone dead? Have you ever looked at someone else’s spouse, family, house or job and wished you had them? Have you ever put Almighty God on a shelf because you were busy and asked Him to “please wait over there?”  Have you ever lied to make things easier?

It’s time to display the works of God through love and deliverance, not judgment and avoidance. We only get to clean the ‘fish’ after we’ve caught them – because then they will know for themselves, they are unclean. We didn’t know we were unclean until the Lord’s purity began to work on us. It’s called conviction. Bye. 👋

P 3064 The missing piece to the meaning of life …

/ DVH

… IS IN THE BIBLE! Our Heavenly Father God has not left us to our own devices, instead heaven invaded earth in the most innocent, harmless, least intrusive and threatening form – Jesus Christ came here as a little, helpless baby! HE IS OUR MISSING PIECE. In the bible we have a permanent record of God’s love in action throughout the whole book. Because men and women, just like us, saw our God in action and wrote it down. Now we need to act just like the leper in Mark 1:45 ‘… he…began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter,…” What do we proclaim everywhere? That God’s love is clearly demonstrated through Christ! He is the Major piece of our life’s puzzle.

We have discovered that His Love needs evidence — and Jesus Christ is our personal, and corporate evidence that mankind is now, and will always be, greatly cherished and loved by God Himself. This fact was never meant to be kept a secret – God Himself came here!! We’ve been incredibly blessed, because the bible says to each one of us:  “whosoever-will-may-come!” In other words:  we don’t care what you did. If you are willing to make amends and walk away from sin, and trust Jesus to save and heal you from the torments and angst that sin has produced in your life … you are welcome here! There is no secret password, handshake, keycard or any particular puzzle skills needed! The bible has been given to us to make God’s love for us clearly known. 

That Love for each one of us is another major piece to find. Christians have been reborn to be walking, talking demonstrators of God’s love in action. We are to live this way with each other, and that will be our witness to the world around us.“In addition to all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” Colossians 3:14. The Father, Jesus His Son, and the precious Holy Spirit already have this perfect bond of unity. If we think about Their mutual love like that, then we will begin to understand how important OUR unity is to Them. Their kind of love explodes in us, and on us, and it intentionally fills up our hearts. But this love is not just a feeling – it is a choice. Choice is another huge part of our puzzle. 

Christ chose to love us and that love has always been on display through His words and actions recorded in His book. He did that whenever He chose to lift people up who were burdened by their sin, and He challenged those who thought they weren’t! He healed the sick, cleansed the lepers and delivered those long held captive by the devil’s wiles. One of our enemy’s greatest deceptions portrays him as a scary person in a red suit with horns. But, our bible portrays the enemy as disguising himself as an angel of light. So we need God’s wisdom to see and hear properly – there’s another puzzle piece. His book can teach us. 

Together with the Holy Spirit’s help, plus everything contained within His book, these things are our very best puzzle solvers, and part of God’s heavenly plans and tactics. However, even the bible itself can be a puzzle. We will sometimes need 3D laser skills to see the reality contained inside it. The Holy Spirit helps us to look through the words to the realities within. “The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).” John 10:10. If whatever you have bumped into steals, kills or destroys yourself, or others, it is not God. Jesus Himself made that clear. Our only hope is to tune into whatever the Holy Spirit is doing, then we can see beyond the obvious things in this world, into His realm, where love prevails.

We also need to hold tight to another puzzle piece that says ‘God chose to give His precious Son as a sacrifice.’ Jesus chose to come here. And the Holy Spirit chooses to be present all over the earth, guiding each one of us, as He is going to and fro. He is watching out for anyone whose heart is toward the Father. The Trinity’s deliberate choices have led to us having absolute freedom to choose which way we will personally go. And no-one else can take that choice, that puzzle piece, from you. You will have to choose to lay your entire life down at His feet. 

Day by day, we continually remind ourselves of His Ways by reading His book – that book is the key to every eternal mystery. My next proposed puzzle piece is an important fragment of the eternal puzzle we need to understand. When people die, where do they go? His book tells us that. The bible shows us the answer, when it tells us about a rich man who had a beggar named Lazarus at his gate. The rich man ignored the beggar’s needs. (Luke 16:19-31) You can read about the results for yourself. This puzzle piece looks like this:  whatever we’ve been given is to be used to further His kingdom, not ours.

My last pivotal puzzle piece is that salvation is available to every single human being, even the worst of us. In God’s kingdom ALL means ALL!  Almighty God does not use hyperbole, He doesn’t have to. What He says is truth! Jesus clarifies our view of our Heavenly Father and personifies His ways beautifully in the bible. This eternal puzzle was always meant to be solved by us… and FYI …Jesus Christ is the missing piece. Bye 👋

P 3032 Live this life mindfully.

/ DVH

How do we walk with the Holy Spirit? Mindfully. We pay attention to our responses in this life and live aware of Him. And if the world around you descends into chaos, and you still feel peace, then we choose to realise Who is helping us and we start thanking Him! We need to recognise when He has clearly inhabited our difficult situations because the Holy Spirit isn’t a brass band, big fuss kind of a Person – He will come and go and we can miss Him.

It is such a joy to know that the Holy Spirit understands our humanity. Romans 8:11 MSG explains this.“But if God Himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of Him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome Him, in whom He dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God Who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, He’ll do the same thing in you that He did in Jesus, bringing you alive to Himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and He does, as surely as He did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With His Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!”

Sin was dealt with, 2000+years ago, literally when Jesus died, we died. Dead people don’t worry about sin – they are dead. Dead people don’t have opinions… they are dead. You can’t hurt a dead person’s feelings be-ca-u-se … they don’t have any they are dead! All that stuff we accumulated throughout our lifetime is now dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead …ALL DEAD. We live a new, different life now, and the Holy Spirit will guide us daily into the Father’s Ways.

The Holy Spirit is the One Who made us alive in Christ – we call that being born again. It’s a biblical term for a spiritual reality and it focusses on our new life in Christ. Step by step, as we choose to follow His Ways, He will lead us away from everything that imprisoned us before, and those things will no longer have the same appeal. There are times the old self is so deeply imbedded within sinful ways, that we will need to walk closely with the Holy Spirit to walk away from that stuff. The bonus buy when we do that is that we get to know Him better! 

“Do two walk together except they make an appointment and have agreed?” Amos 3:3. That’s the secret … to walk with the Holy Spirit, we must learn to agree with Him. Sometimes we may even have to let go of things that we think we know about right and wrong, because the human being who taught us was teaching from their own experience. But God’s Ways are higher than ours. The Holy Spirit knows what the Father likes, and He is delighted to share those things with us now. 

This is how it works for me. I read the bible, it might just be one verse, it could be many chapters, but I am waiting for Him to highlight something for me. This morning He said to me: “Tell My people if they want to walk with Me they will need to choose to be mindful of my Presence in their lives.” We don’t have a series of rules we must follow and remember. We have a new Way to live. He has already prepared it for each one us, and because of that new way, we will grow closer and more in love with Jesus each day. It’s called the Way of Love.

When I read the bible, I try not to skip any bits that tell me things I don’t think I want to hear! Including the things I might need to change. This happens because I want the Holy Spirit and I  to walk together, in agreement. I ask Him questions and I remember to thank Him. His ways are now my focal point.  Even if I find something He does not like — I ask Him: “Do I do that?” Most of the time I get a very quick answer to that kind of prayer!

If you want to be humble, that will humble you! Especially if in your mind you have dismissed whatever it is as not being all that bad. I’ve found it is far too easy to think, “God won’t mind that,” – without even asking Him first. Bad plan. Let Him correct you with His eye on you. The bible is just great at pointing out stuff we would rather just gloss over. He knows how to stop something before it starts!

The glorious point of mindfulness, is that is not about digging around looking for SIN. There are simply times we can’t see through His eyes and He reveals to us what He can see. The sins are gone. It doesn’t mean we didn’t do whatever it was, it means Somebody Else paid the penalty for it! That sin was nailed to a cross all those years ago – when Jesus became our sin. What we need to watch out for is our own response to having the problem diagnosed by the bible. This response will show us where we have been hobbled by the enemy – then we do something about it. 

We can confess our sin to someone else, and He will help us change the way we think about it. The entire bible is a diagnostic heaven-sent tool. It doesn’t just teach us about the Trinity and sin, redemption and the past – it shows us how to bring that redemption into our own personal situations! So what we do now is bring His new life in us, into the darkness of this world. Starting with our own lives. We live now, today …mindfully! Be transformed – let Him change your mind about how to live each and every single day – living out the way of Love. Bye 👋.

P 2958 When the Master is away …!

/ DVH

… That’s when the bad servants beat up the good ones and started stealing, plus they cheat others, and complain about some people getting more than them.  Once they even killed off the heir so they could have the lot! There’s my potted version of at least 3 of those parables. 

The Lord told over 30 stories about servants and masters … do you think maybe He had a point for us?? My thought for today is this: those stories, parables, illustrations of what NOT to do are written to warn us. We’re His servants —remember? Those things were written to alert us about the kind of stuff we can fall into when the Holy Spirit is not welcome. You think that’s an exaggeration right? Yeah, so did I until the Lord put His great big exclamation point right next to the title of this blog! 

Years ago, there was this hair product called Brylcreem. It fixed a guy’s hair in place like glue!! Forget gels … this stuff was shiny and it stuck your hair together into the kind of a shiny helmet that wouldn’t move in a Force 4 gale! Men loved it. Meanwhile, at the same time, the ladies were also supergluing their hair into teased up balls that stood about 6-10cms away from their heads. We did this stuff … be-ca-us-e…it was the fashion. How dumb can you get and still breathe? Actually you couldn’t breathe much at all – that hair spray left you coughing and spluttering for ages.

What has hairspray and Brylcreem got to do with the church? Any church can get stuck in a shape that comes from the past by doing what we have always done, simply because it worked in the past! That’s what. OR we can end up following the fashions of the mega churches around us – instead of finding our own place. Maybe we’ve stopped thinking about what the Master of HIS vineyard told us to do, and started to think that our church is ours… OR … we want to do everything the way our great granddaddy did it because ‘he founded this church and they had wonderful ‘praise the Lord’ meetings way back then. This church has great roots.’ 

Fabulous. So how is the fruit production going? Good roots mean good fruit right? 😳 Are we still excited about the faith we first had when we met the Lord? We were over-the-moon-passionate about those things He is passionate about. IE: PEOPLE! We have been exhorted, in the book, not to leave our first love behind… plus our faith is meant to grow and expand and affect everyone around us … until we leave here. 

To me that means we should be trusting God with more today than we did last year … because, to begin with, more stuff keeps happening in this world each year! Things change, our kids grow, and our problems are no longer how long will they sleep? They are: what time did they come home last night? Who are they hanging around with? Unless we listen to Him and He starts blessing our meetings in such a way that others come to believe, we can easily lose our way. – like the servants in those parables.  

They had meetings in the bible that were so incredible people got saved just standing near the participants. I know that some churches have over 4,000 people attending and bible studies and programs up to the ceiling and back – but how many laid-down lovers of Jesus do you have? How many people can you call at four in the morning to help you with an unruly drunk or druggie who needs help? The kind of people who will open their homes and take that severely disheveled, smelly person in. 

The thing that corrupted the workers in those vineyards etc. was this – time passed and the master did not come back. So people starting improvising how they thought things would work better for them. In the absence of the Holy Spirit’s convicting Presence we will simply go through the motions …and then one day we’ll wonder why our kids don’t want to come to church anymore! Would we even notice that we are just going through the motions, Sunday by Sunday? There is a way to reach into our neighbourhoods … He knows it and we need what HE KNOWS. Let’s ask HIM! Let’s ‘ask, and keep on asking’ about that!

I don’t have answers, I just have questions. I’m not even talking about miracles, signs and wonders, although those things are great! I’m talking about healthy, happy, growing, spiritual babies who have a testimony to the goodness of God every single time you speak to them. People who are devoted to glorifying Jesus in every situation. Plus mature people who happily spend their lives for His sake, even if life takes a bite out of them – and it will – their fruit just gets sweeter and sweeter.

So what can you do about this? Pray. Raise your level of expectation – expect to meet with Him and have your mindsets challenged and changed, every single Sunday. It is not the preacher’s skill that will change you, it is the attitude of your heart toward God fulfilling His purposes in your life. Big duh! here … don’t stay mad at anyone! Let’s not be the kind of servants who mess around and mess up! Even if we feel nothing, HE will always deserve all the glory. Amen! When the Master is away …let’s do what HE would do. Bye 👋

P 2911 LET.

/ DVH

‘Let’ is actually a really big word despite it only having 3 letters! God clearly tells us: “I will LET you learn.” The dictionary says this about the word LET… not prevent or forbid; allow. As we deliberately pick up His yoke, He has promised to teach us everything we will need for our new life. But the Lord won’t push us, we still need to choose what He wants. So … let’s move on and look at a few of the many blessings of ‘letting’ …

“Let us gaze upon Jesus, as the Author and the completion of our faith,…” Hebrews 12:2;  Looking at our failure kills faith, but looking at what He did for us, opens us up to learn His Ways.“And let us consider how to spur one another on to love and good deeds…” Hebrews 10:24. WE set the pace, we choose our growing edges. God is always waiting and willing to teach us.“Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not …” Galatians 6:9. If we get tired we can ask for help, that’s how we will learn how patient He is, how ready to help us. 

“…let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus,…” Hebrews 12:1.We need to let Him guide us, and teach us what we need on our journey with Him, His book is a revelation of His will. Some things are weights, so we can get tired if we don’t  leave them behind. We need to choose to confess our sins, and receive His forgiveness, be-ca-use … “IF we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9.

So much is available to His kids when we chose to deliberately learn His Ways and practice them! Jesus said: “…Walk with Me and work with Me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with Me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:29a&30. The Lord allows us to learn how Grace works, as we read and put into practice what He said in the book. This is how we learn to trust Him, because what He does can be seen unfolding around us.

His overflowing Grace is always there for us, and we have more than enough to give away. That’s because we have a more-than-enough God Who is rich in these qualities and HE LOVES TO SHARE!  A.S.K. and … keep on asking!  Jesus gave this world an inexhaustible supply of Grace. We are encouraged to learn how His Grace impacts our lives and the lives of those around us, with His help, by using our faith. We are now grace dispensers.

Grace is our all day, all night, in every circumstance – enabler of good! It’s the Holy Spirit’s forte. He is so-oo good at it! Sometimes I have been as dumb as the dirt I came from, but HE knows how to do anything and everything – well!  When His Grace is present it means my focus is on Him, not just any pain or circumstances. I deliberately choose to put my focus onto the Lord and His eternal provision, and at the same time, I understand that He is teaching me about Himself. Then: “having done ALL I stand!” … until I hear from Him again. The Holy Spirit helps me, and praise Him, He will help and allow His kids to learn LOVE in all its forms.

We can gladly embrace the Love God has for every single human being, because our focus is not on what they have done, or did or didn’t do — it is on Who He is and what He already did! As we let that kind of love in, using our faith — it opens us up to the infinite possibilities of His Kingdom. He helps us by pointing out where we are falling down … so we don’t have to fall down next time! He lets us learn His Ways with His loving Eye upon us. Our God is never an absent God – He can be silent – but He is never gone!

You and I are a part of Him now, because we are His Body. We know we will always be received and He loves to help us to be ministers of reconciliation.. We need to make Him welcome, as our personal tutor/teacher/helper/guide/interpreter. We just need to A.S.K. I am so grateful that He lets us learn. I’ve found that the action of letting Him, or allowing HIM to take charge, is a HUGE thing.

Despite this word’s actual size, it is incredibly important. It has opened the door to a whole other way to live – in another Kingdom – His! Bye. 👋

P 2894 Whose pleasure? …

/ DVH

 …His or ours??…

Around 4,500 years or so, ago, Noah sent out a dove to fly over the face of our flooded planet to find a resting place. The third time, he launched the dove, it did not come back …

“Then he (Noah) sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.” Genesis 5:8-12.

Thousands of years later, in another time and pretty much another place … a dove landed on Jesus Christ’s head … and that dove remained with Him. (Matthew 3:16&17) Let’s be clear, when the heaven’s opened that day, and God Himself authenticated Jesus, I think it is pretty safe to assume that Noah’s original dove was long gone by then. That previous bird was deader than dead! But I wanted to bring this subject up today because hubby was talking to me about that thought a few days ago. I think the symbolism in it can speak to us.

First of all, blind Freddie can see that Noah’s dove was looking for a resting place! The earth was covered in water and the bird was looking for a safe place to roost. I believe this is one of the many incredible word-pictures of the Holy Spirit’s work. Thousands of years later, the Holy Spirit wanted to find a place to rest and Jesus Christ provided Him with that place.

Please note that the Holy Spirit did not land on John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin! Yet that man was filled with the Holy Spirit from before He was born. He lived a very peculiar life devoted to God – but the Holy Spirit was looking for somewhere He could stay and make His home. Ask yourself – why? Why would He want somewhere permanent? What is this telling us about the Holy Spirit’s Ways? 

I personally think we can over-emphasis the experience of being filled by Him, over and above the sheer joy of simply obediently walking with HIm. We get stuck in our own pleasure, rather than emphasising His pleasure. Again, something we need to think about! We desperately need the Holy Spirit to abide in us, the same way He abided with Christ. So the next question is this: What must I do, personally, for that to happen in my life? How can I make Him welcome?

Here’s the good news!  Jesus has already done all the work for us. He removed the sin that kept us in captivity and stopped us from living pure lives before the Lord. Now, the only thing that can stop us from walking with the Holy Spirit for His pleasure, is strangely – OUR pleasure. Our society at large, l-o-v-e-s double standards. Ya might want to think on that one!! 🤔 Here’s an old saying: a ship in the water is great, but water in a ship is not so great! I think, the problem is there is too much water in our ships! We need to value what He values … and one of the things I think He values is people.

When the Holy Spirit filled that building at Pentecost people didn’t rush about talking about how they felt – instead they couldn’t stop preaching, talking about and worshipping Jesus! Their personal encounters with Him led them deeper and deeper into obedience and sacrifice for His Kingdom’s sake. They met a Person and they followed Him! Our primary focus in this life matters. We cannot serve Him, and have the Holy Spirit rest upon us like He did on Jesus, when we continually choose to be double-minded. We must learn to live a compatible life. “For how can two walk together unless they be in agreement?”Psalm 119.1-2.

Obedience to His Word, despite our own personal fears, or preferences – or even inconvenience – positions us to continually walk with Him, relying on His provision. Almighty God loves obedience – it is one of the ways we show Him our love for Him. Our deliberate and heartfelt obedience positions us to hear and follow Him. It is like opening our spiritual ears. If we cannot hear Him clearly then we need to start obeying what the bible says. Pick the verse that says “Love your enemies…” find an enemy – and DO IT! This is what valuing His company looks like. Throw away your need to stew in wonderful feelings, and doggedly, continually, choose His Ways.

Let’s put aside our pleasure and choose His pleasure instead. We want to be the place where the Holy Spirit is welcome, a place where He wants to land and remain. Because when He rests upon us, we will rest in Him. Bye 🕊️

P 2802 Don’t live like an orphan.

/ DVH

You know, orphans have to find their own way, they have to do everything for themselves. They do not belong to anyone. They have no family, no family to support them and back them up. You and I, we are no longer orphans!… Not only were we re-born into God’s family … then … God Himself adopted us. We must learn to make Him welcome in our hearts!“But to as many as did receive and welcome Him, He gave the right [the authority, the privilege] to become children of God, that is, to those who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) His name—…” John 1:12. 

First of all, being adopted by God is a wonderful privilege, it is not a right – and secondly, that privilege becomes ours AS we choose to receive Him. BTW, that word ‘become’ stands out like a sore thumb to me. Christians have not arrived anywhere … yet. While we are still here on this earth, we are becoming …! We are learning His ways, that’s why we read the book. We have entered a life-long process of transformation. We daily walk with the Holy Spirit because we want to look like our Older Brother Jesus. At the same time it is no small thing to be eligible to use His Name – that’s part of our adoptive inheritance. His Name has authority here on earth, as well as in heaven.

Ephesians 1:5 says:“He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will.” Our adoption was always God’s plan. He let humanity have its head … and look where that landed us! Then He personally provided a perfect way back to Him. Almighty God has a plan for each of our lives. He’s a good good Father. He demonstrated how much He loves humanity when He sent His only One-of-a-kind Son here to live, and die, among us. Father God’s plans are always so much better than ours, but human beings have a cultivated, internal independence that often refuses to yield.

God will not take us over – He simply wants help each one of us reach our full potential – just like any good father would. A son or a daughter is an heir – whether they were adopted, or born into a family. The mistake we have made in modern Christianity is to think that being born again, plus being adopted, means that we can have whatever we want. He wants voluntarily yielded vessels for His kingdom. You know, our precious Father is not a despot running a conglomerate, handing out favours to a special few.  He is our ever-loving ever-living Heavenly Father. The One Who made heaven and earth, Who is worthy of praise and glory and honour – every single earth-bound day of our little lives. He gave everything for all.

In the absence of our Father’s Presence on this earth … as His kids, His heirs – we have been delegated to act like He would.  A true son or daughter represents His Father. So we are here to serve, like Jesus served. Even if we LEAD other people, we are still serving. Jesus wasn’t showing off His power when He healed people, delivered them, or raised the dead. Even when He multiplied food, He did that because… “…the people were hungry and they would not have made it home without food!”Jesus is an illustration of how much the Father loves us and cares about our lives.

The Lord disapproved of religious people because they misled others — often for their own benefit. You and I are here on this earth, right here, right now, to pour out His Love on others. Because we are no longer orphans we have a confidence that can willingly share. This is the love that we received when He adopted us. We need to tell others that they can be adopted too. Our whole aim is to love and serve people the way He loved and served us. There are no bright stars in His kingdom – most of us are NOT automatically relegated to be minions! The only star in His kingdom is Christ!

This means the way we treat each other matters: “But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is taking his time in coming,’ and begins to beat the servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk,..” AMPC. We dare not mistreat any of the people Christ died to save! Before Christ came and negated the power of sin, we were powerless to change our self-centred behaviour. Now, because of everything He did and said, we have been given the power to live this life differently. That’s what faith does, it chooses to respect its freedom by laying down its life for others.

There are human beings all over this earth who do not know that they have been set free from sin and death, and they are living their lives as orphans – struggling and straining to make the best of their time here. Cheating, stealing, hurting others to gain things.  (BTW, FYI, death is a door … not an ending! Jesus showed us that.) Most orphans have to learn to fend for themselves. But in a family, one member looks after another. Jesus loves us because we are His family. How many Christians have been fooled into living like they have no inheritance? HE is our inheritance. All that He did and is.

Don’t live your life like an orphan, there is more to this life than having enough money, power, position etc. We have been given His power to usher in change, simply by choosing to love other people into His kingdom. SELAH. 🤔

P 2627 He is always with us.

/ DVH

“When you pass through the deep, stormy sea, you can count on Me to be there with you. When you pass through raging rivers, you will not drown. When you walk through persecution like fiery flames, you will not be burned; the flames will not harm you,…” Isaiah 43:2.

The bible says – Lord will be ‘with’ us. It does not, however, say that He will always keep us away from dangerous, difficult stuff. I think the reason the Lord does not say: ‘I will make it so you never suffer’ – is because “I will be WITH you…” is SO much better! The very best thing we can do when we are in dire straights, is to look for Him. Why? Because He said He would be there, that’s why! The body of Christ has become spiritually unfit – we stopped doing our spiritual exercises and started demanding God do this and that. That’s what sent the Israelites down the plug-hole!

We can see in the bible, that the fire of persecution could not touch Christ. He stood silently and faced accusation even on the way to the cross. satan couldn’t drown the Lord Jesus either. Even before He was resurrected, He walked on water. He knew Who was in charge of what He did and where He went  He was with those disciples on the water talking to them when they thought they might drown. He stood on the water outside the boat!

Almighty God respects our free will, instead of turning it over to our enemy – we need to remind ourselves Who we belong to. The best thing we can do when things go upside down and inside out, is to ask Jesus to be with us. In His Presence nothing on this earth can bother us – we simply must learn to live in His Presence. Jesus DID it! Kingdom things like grace, mercy, love, and peace etc. are bigger than trouble, they instantly exclude it. Stuff won’t go away – we will WALK RIGHT THROUGH IT.

God’s peace does not sort of kind of shoo trouble out of the door, anymore than turning on the light pushes away the darkness! When His peace is present HE is present. (God’s peace is a Person, BTW – the precious Holy Spirit.) If you and I switch a light on, the darkness instantly disappears. There is no contest between light and dark. One thing simply excludes the other. That statement is our point of faith. Despite how we feel – truth is always truth. Our faith is an ever increasing revelation of Who we know God to be.

The real secret to overcoming in difficult circumstances is to make Him welcome. Tell Him: “Holy Spirit You are welcome in this place” – then point to your heart. It is one thing to do that in church and completely another to do it when stuff starts happening. It’s a faith statement. We aren’t talking about a theory – one that works sometimes and doesn’t others. Jesus didn’t try to walk on water. He simply did it, as casually as you or I would walk up the street. The wind and waves didn’t bother Him one bit. Why not? Because ...“He was going to the other side.” That’s what He said and that’s what He did.

Even on this earth Jesus lived in another kingdom! That kingdom has a different POV than this world does. God’s Kingdom has His POV.“Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of lights [the Creator and Sustainer of the heavens], IN Whom there is no variation [no rising or setting] or shadow cast by His turning [for He is perfect and never changes].” James 1:17. Knowing God can’t deceive you despite the circumstances, is the place to stand. There is no “maybe” or “I hope so” in God’s kingdom. Everything is YES and AMEN. 

The Lord Jesus quite simply didn’t live in a place that included other possibilities. He took the time to know His Father and relate to Him. Just like you and I take a breath without even thinking about it, the Lord Jesus lived to do God’s will. As imperfect human beings we like to entertain other possibilities — mainly to explain why we are shrieking our heads off in a sinking boat, as it goes up and down in rough seas!

In heaven there is no place for doubt. Faith and Love rule. Our job is to bring those things down here – no matter what is going on around us. That cannot work if we don’t practise the skill of trusting God in all things – big and small. We need to immediately get rid of those thoughts that say: “God won’t help me”… “This thing doesn’t matter it is too small to bother Him about” … “I can’t.” I can’t but HE CAN. Dependance upon Him means we lean back into Him and trust He is Who He says He is.

A lack of peace begins in our soul. In our emotions, our thoughts. Fear grabs at us and we start to sink in our emotions and thoughts first. The reason we have to wrangle this or that all the time, is that we are living in the wrong kingdom –OR maybe we are trying to live in both! That means we end up doing the hokey pokey with our faith! When we live by His kingdom’s rules then His life flows. Remember, nobody can kill us without His permission. And Almighty God will not give permission until it is the right time. Why? “Because there is a TIME to be born and a time to die ..” (Ecclesiastes 3) 

Sometimes I want to say to people, take your earthly glasses off and put on the kingdom ones and just leave them there, and please, don’t forget to read the book!! His book reminds us of Who He is, and how much He loves us. He is always with us. We are not of this world … we are His Kingdom people. We talk about it, carry it, live in it, breath it, and do it – and if necessary – we die for it. Bye.👋